


The Journal Keepers

by sabinelagrande



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc spoilers, Community: intoabar, Gen, Introspection, Loneliness, Lucretia-centric (Adventure Zone), Post-Balance Arc (Adventure Zone)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 19:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14576418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: Lucretia, in a quiet place.





	The Journal Keepers

**Author's Note:**

> For A Ficathon Goes Into a Bar 2018: Jester goes into a bar and meets... Lucretia!
> 
> Thanks to pearwaldorf for looking this over. <3

The Director-- no, Lucretia sits in a quiet corner in a tavern; the tavern sits in the solidly middle class portion of Neverwinter, unassuming and forthright in its lack of pretension. Lucretia has cultivated her status here. She'll never be anonymous again, not after the Voidfish, plural, but the barman keeps the lookie-loos away, encouraging them to have the honor of buying the lonely journal keeper a round but otherwise leaving her be. These semi-anonymous drinks come in a slow trickle; a time or two they have come in a torrent. 

Avi, thankfully, thinks "pick up the Director who got shitfaced accidentally" is the most epic of secrets to keep and has not spread this around.

But here in her corner of this bar, Lucretia lets her burdens ease the tiniest bit. She lets the thinnest part of her chitin slough off; she's been doing it more lately, as the rebuilding efforts begin to slack off. This is her refuge, where she can be less Director and more Lucretia by degrees. 

She lays out the thin sheaf of papers she brought with her, a few personal items that she hasn't had a chance to go over. There's a card from Merle, and in the style of Merle's missives, the front has a garishly cheerful beach scene; the back just has a few lines, pleasantries. It doesn't offend her how brief they are, because Merle sends them with regularity. He does it to keep his hand in, like he's learning how to do again, saying what he means by his presence rather than his words.

She pens a few sentences on a similar card she bought at a vendor down the street and sets it aside.

Magnus has sent her a letter, as he does now and again. He has deft carpenter's fingers, but terrible, blocky handwriting; she has to squint at the paper in places to make it out. His letter is mostly about his dogs, and Lucretia smiles at it, knowing how completely his new venture has consumed him.

The letter ends the way Magnus's letters always end. He veers off sharply, to heartfelt, heartbreaking words about her, about how he forgives her. He speaks so genuinely, and she knows every letter will end that way until she accepts it.

She writes a reply that is mostly about the new Bureau. The letter does not veer off sharply at the end; Magnus is ready, but she is not.

There is no letter from Taako, because neither she nor Taako has forgiven her for Lup. She's fairly sure Lup has, from the hastily scrawled cards Lup sends very, very rarely, but Taako is another matter.

She does not send a letter to Taako. Inside she knows that Taako's hate comes from love, for his sister and Lucretia both, and the best she can do now is wish him luck.

There's several pages from Davenport, but she sets them aside for the moment. Instead she finds herself opening the notebook she brought with her. It is not The Story; it is not anything of consequence. She learned long ago to keep two books, one neat and comprehensive, the other just for scratch. In its pages is room for the things that would have to be laboriously removed from an official log: doodles, bitching about things, notes to self. She used to put scraps of poetry in, but she's not there yet; maybe she'll never get back there again.

Without really thinking about it, she's started sketching. She's drawing a picture of Railsplitter, a thing she's drawn before; she finds its angles visually interesting, the sweep of its blade compelling. And of course she needs a tree to go with it, in two halves, and the roots and branches flood out, beginning to cover the page. They will merge eventually, the whole page taken up by nothing.

"That's a pretty tree," a voice says, as its owner plops down in a chair next to Lucretia. This has taken some doing, because there were previously no other chairs at her table. Whoever it is had to pick up a chair, carry it over, and drop it at Lucretia's table.

Lucretia waits one, two, three beats before she looks up at the intruder. Said intruder is a blue tiefling, odd enough in its own right, wearing a fashionable if somewhat jejune dress and a bright pink haversack. She's staring at Lucretia's notebook, peering curiously at the swirl of roots on the open page.

"Can I help you with something?" Lucretia asks dryly.

"I'm good," the tiefling says, and Lucretia has to pull the notebook away when she reaches out to touch it.

"What do you want?" Lucretia says slowly, a more direct approach apparently being necessary. 

"My name is Jester," the tiefling says cheerfully, holding out a hand. "I saw you drawing and you looked sad." When Lucretia doesn't shake, she pulls a book out of the haversack. "I draw too. Want to see?"

"I guess so?" Lucretia says, unsure exactly what's going on here.

"I draw every day for the Traveler," Jester says, opening her journal. "He's, like, the best god. If you want a god and like to draw, he's the one for you."

Lucretia is about to give the usual brush off she gives all proselytizers, but then she gets a look at the book. The drawings are somehow crude and refined at the same time; the art shows real skill, but the subject matter is a bit bizarre. On this particular page is a sewer scene, rendered with chiaroscuro, but the rats are floating, strings tied to them like balloons.

"Here are some exploding rats, before they exploded," Jester says. She flips a page, to a picture of a monk hitting herself in the forehead with her own staff. "And this is my friend Beau." Another page, to a tiefling dripping with jewelry. "And this is my friend Molly." Another page. "And this is Molly's dick. I haven't seen it yet, but it must have at least this many piercings." She lowers her voice conspiratorially. "Tiefling dicks aren't pointy, you know? It's all made up for dirty pictures."

"I wasn't sad," Lucretia says.

"Then why did you look so sad?" Jester returns.

"I was pensive," Lucretia says. 

"You just seemed so lonely," Jester says.

Lucretia puts a hand over the stack of correspondence next to her notebook, but she stops. She had a curt response ready; today is nothing like the depths of unfathomable loneliness that Lucretia has felt. Lucretia has been lonelier than ten people could survive, and she crawled her way out of it by her very fingernails. Now she has her friends back, her family, even if those bonds are strained in places.

But then she thinks back to the person she was before the IPRE, over a century ago. She was lonely even then, the bookish mouse who cared for her journal over all else. Maybe she only got through the cataclysm she would endure only because she was practiced at being lonely already. She's not that Lucretia anymore, but maybe there's space now to admit that being lonely sucks in all its amounts.

Jester is still chattering, showing pages filled with more ridiculous drawings. She seems bent on keeping Lucretia company whether Lucretia likes it or not. Lucretia flicks through the pages of her own notebook, opening it up to a certain spot.

"What cute little dresses!" Jester exclaims, at Lucretia's page of sketches. 

Lucretia smiles slightly, or maybe just becomes a little less dour. "I've been thinking about a new wardrobe."

Jester gasps. "I have so many ideas!"

And the journal keepers sit up half the night, pencils in hand, and Avi gets another secret to keep.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Journal Keepers [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17976083) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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